Sunday, December 02, 2012

Radio Netherlands - A Golden Anniversary - Part 1 of 8

This is Part One of an Eight part series on the history of Radio Netherlands, the Dutch International Service. Presented by the late Pete Myers, he was in top form when this was recorded.

Pete Myers in 1996 with Dheera Sujan (left) and Maggie Ayre (right).

This is probably the most comprehensive audio compilation of what was achieved in the first 50 years of the Dutch external radio broadcaster.

The series was recorded in November 1996 and broadcast in February 1997. It contains the voices and sound fragments from Guillermo Marconi, PCJ-tune "Happy Station" and Eddy Startz, Radio Oranje, Radio Herrijzend Nederland, Lou de Jong, Henk van den Broek, (the station's first Director), hr. Van Dulken, (the first Head of the English department), Joop Acda (Director in 1980's), Bert Steinkamp (Programe Director), Lodewijk Bouwens (Director from 1994) and myself, Jonathan Marks (Director of Programmes 1992-2003).

I was talking back then about the need for Radio Netherlands to modernise and embrace new technology including the Internet. I was also concerned that the reason for international broadcasting was about to change - and that we were not moving fast enough to address the "why". In the end, they didn't - so these recordings lasted longer than the station!

About the host

Pete Myers made his name in international broadcasting on the BBC African Service in the 1960's, and at Radio Netherlands as the host and producer of the Afroscene, Mainstream Asia, Asiascan, as well as countless documentaries. There is a tribute programme to him on the podcast site.

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Pete wrote the series together with translator and researcher Luc Lucas. They used material from the Radio Netherlands sound archives, as well as recordings that I found in the Media Network broadcast collection.